


we have heard them sing the dark alive

by blackkat



Series: Bleach Drabbles [4]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bonding, Brief body horror, First Meetings, Fix-It, M/M, Spirit Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 07:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16058267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Jugram walks past him in the hall, shoulder to shoulder with Yhwach, and he doesn’t so much aslookat Bazz. And Bazz should be used to it, a thousand years used to it by now, but the empty place inside his chest that’s the size and shape of a shattered bond whispersSentinel, Sentinel, Sentinellike the goddamn world is ending and Bazzcan't.He signs himself up for a mission in Hueco Mundo and doesn’t look back.





	we have heard them sing the dark alive

**Author's Note:**

> I meant for this to be _two thousand words max_ fuck me sideways.

Jugram walks past him in the hall, shoulder to shoulder with Yhwach, and he doesn’t so much as _look_ at Bazz. And Bazz should be used to it, a thousand years used to it by now, but the empty place inside his chest that’s the size and shape of a shattered bond whispers _Sentinel, Sentinel, Sentinel_ like the goddamn world is ending and Bazz _can't_.

He signs himself up for a mission in Hueco Mundo and doesn’t look back.

It shouldn’t be a Sternritter’s mission. Technically it should be left to one of the lower captains, maybe even a lieutenant, but something in Bazz's head feels like it’s screaming, and he can't tell if he’s furious or aching or just so fed up with chasing Jugram’s fucking coattails when Jugram was the one to abandon him. Jugram was the one who walked past him, left him in the dirt, picked the stronger Guide the minute he had the chance. Some days Bazz doesn’t care as much, but—

This isn't one of those days.

Hueco Mundo is at least a mild distraction; the feeling of Hollows everywhere itches at him, hate-terror- _hunger_ beating a tattoo in his blood, and he can feel the curling, coiling reiatsu of Aizen’s Espada lingering in the air as he looks over the ruins of Las Noches. There were Shinigami here just a brief time ago, their presence a lingering shadow, cool-swift and subtle on the breeze. Bazz wonders if that means Aizen is defeated; there's been no word passed on to the lower ranks of the Sternritter yet if he has been, but surely Soul Society can't be _that_ incompetent.

Of course, Bazz wasn’t paying all the much attention when he practically stormed out of the palace, snatching the surveillance orders right out of Gerard’s hands as he left. Too angry, and if he loses control of his temper too often, destroys too much, Yhwach is likely to hand him over to Bambietta again for punishment. Getting out was safer, and beyond that, Bazz is in the mood to stew in his own thoughts. A nearly-empty desert is a good place for that, and he hunches a little further into his coat as he studies the tumbled ruins of Las Noches.

“Fuck _everything_ ,” Bazz says out loud, and the words are stolen by the wind but it still makes him feel better as he starts down the dune, boots slipping in the sand. There was a fight close by—he can see the deep gouges in the earth, the glittering swathes where heat turned the sand to glass. A massive, crescent-edged scythe is sticking out of the ground, an eerie shape in the moonlight, and Bazz eyes it curiously, wondering if he’s tempted enough to go retrieve it. It looks like an interesting weapon, if a little impractical, and maybe Jugram—

“Fuck him _in particular_ ,” Bazz says loudly, interrupting his own thought, and huffs angrily, stomping towards the main building with slightly longer strides. Every thought of Jugram right now is a bad one, brings all of Bazz's focus right to the empty, gaping wound carved into his brain, the torn threads where a Bond used to be. It _aches_ , and he’s been replaying the moment when Jugram ripped himself away for a thousand fucking years now. He’s _sick_ of it. He’s sick of seeing the way Jugram turns to Yhwach, the way Yhwach looks back. Jugram was _his_ Sentinel, his Match, his fucking _heart_.

But then Yhwach killed their families, and Jugram took one look and him and left Bazz in the dust like a piece of trash.

Heat curls down Bazz's arm, simmers in his veins, the horrible, mocking gift Yhwach gave him. Fire, just like the fire that destroyed their country, killed his parents, started his quest for revenge, and Yhwach had pressed the power into his soul with a hard, cruel smile like he was reminding Bazz of everything he lost then. Bazz hates him, hates him, _hates him_ , and some days he hates Jugram too, for knowing and not even bothering to _care_.

This is one of those days, and Bazz breathes through the rage, breathes through the burn of fire under his skin, and keeps walking.

Las Noches is the only place Bazz has ever seen that makes Silbern look creatively decorated and varied in its architecture. He wrinkles his nose as he steps through a gaping hole in the wall, kicking a few chunks of stone out of his path. White, white, and more white—it’s like a Sternritter meeting at its worst. Apparently Aizen wasn’t nearly as creative as Bazz was assuming, if this was his grand palace.

There are a few dead Hollows scattered through the hallways, and at one point in his more or less aimless wanderings Bazz is sure he hears footsteps, but he doesn’t see any signs of life. Or, well, whatever passes for it among Shinigami and Hollows—Bazz has never been quite sure how that works. _Especially_ the Shinigami thing, given that they have kids and shit. It’s weird, and he kind of wants to know more, but Yhwach pretty much hordes all knowledge of Soul Society beyond what’s tactically necessary. Bazz shouldn’t care, but Yhwach says _you don’t need to know this_ and the contrary, hateful part of Bazz's brain immediately makes it his first priority to find out. He’s managed to learn a bit about the Arrancar, mostly by hanging around while the Schutzstaffel discuss plans for taking over Hueco Mundo, but it’s not enough to satisfy him.

Maybe that’s part of the reason he doesn’t mind taking this kind of mission. It’s not teaching him anything, not really, but he’s out of Silbern, out of the Wandenreich, and that’s more than enough to satisfy the small, spiteful voice that rises whenever Yhwach talks about their grand Quincy empire.

 _You built that empire on the bones of my family_ , he wants to say. _You conquered your own people and now you expect us to follow you without question_.

They do, of course. Yhwach is god to most of the Quincy, everything they’ll ever want or need. Bazz has tried his hand at that kind of loyalty, has tried, after centuries of struggling, to keep his head down and his eyes on Yhwach’s heels, but he can't. Even for Jugram’s sake, on the days when Bazz doesn’t hate him, there’s no way Bazz can forget the flames, the screams, the ruin left in Yhwach’s wake.

Stepping out into sunlight is a surprise, sharp enough to make Bazz pull up short, and he blinks at the light spilling across an open bridge. The sky above is a dome of blue—literally a dome, with pieces that have cracked and fallen away to reveal the night sky that covers the rest of Hueco Mundo. Except for the cracks, Bazz can hardly tell that the sunlit sky is fake; it seems as real as anything Gremmy has ever brought into being, and it’s eerie, unsettling. He hesitates at the edge of the light, watching clouds drift across the ceiling, and some animal instinct says to keep to the shadows, to slip away out of sight and avoid the eyes that must be watching.

Bazz doesn’t, of course. He’s had a lot of practice ignoring his instincts, so he grits his teeth and stalks forward, crossing the long, narrow bridge. There's a ruined tower on the other side, cracked and half-fallen, walls blown apart and chunks of stone scattered everywhere. A flight of stairs winds down to the base, but they look rickety, uncertain. In Hueco Mundo’s reishi-dense atmosphere it’s easy enough to drag together enough particles to hold him in thin air, and Bazz leaps down that way, landing heavily on the cracked stone floor. There was a fight here, too, he’d bet everything on it; the damage looks far too deliberate to have been collateral. And—

A glitter catches his eye, and Bazz frowns, straightens. Like crystal, he thinks, sweeping a look across the half-shadowed room. When he shifts, he catches sight of it again, and more clearly this time—there's a trident half-buried in the stone of the floor, the blue tassel on it scorched but still fluttering faintly in the wind. It’s a pretty weapon, far more so than the scythe Bazz passed up earlier, and he heads for it, curls his fingers around the crystalline shaft. There's a heavy thrum of reiatsu under his hand, strong enough that he almost jerks away, but before he can there's a cry, wispy and melancholy and low.

Bazz raises his head even as he holds out his arm, and the force of almost twenty-five pounds of raptor landing on his elbow makes him stagger a step, even though he’s braced for it. his spirit animal flutters for a moment, catching her balance, and then side-steps up to his shoulder and chirps.

“Hey, Jezebel,” Bazz says, and reaches up to stroke her breast. Most spirit animals keep their distance, act as portents more than companions, but Bazz has been on his own for almost a thousand years. Like hell he’s going to avoid a piece of his soul, not even bother to name her. She’s suffered just as much as he has with Jugram’s absence.

The harpy eagle cocks her head, her crest of dark feathers catching the sun as she studies Bazz with sharp eyes, then looks to the trident. Bazz has half a second to realize what she’s planning before she leaps, a beat of her wings steadying her as she lands on the corkscrew tip of the shaft. She closes her talons around it, and for a moment power shimmers across her banded feathers, making Bazz's breath catch.

“Jezebel?” he asks, more sharply this time, because he can feel the cold-sharp prickle of it over his skin, a wash of sensation that makes his heartbeat trip into a faster rhythm.

Jezebel chirps, high-bright and almost chiding, and takes off in an explosion of wingbeats and air, swooping up, dropping to circle. She cries again, that eerie, penetrating wail, and she’s normally _never_ this vocal. It makes Bazz frown, makes him take a step after her, but as soon as he does she chitters at him in warning, just skims his face with the tips of her wings as she passes, and Bazz pulls up short.

“Come _on_ , I'm trying here,” he complains, but Jezebel just keeps circling, one eye trained on him expectantly.

She wants something from him. Wants him to _do_ something, and Bazz huffs in irritation, dragged a hand over his mohawk. “I'm supposed to be _scouting_ ,” he tells her, but she clucks at him and doesn’t stop. Drifts higher, lashing out with one foot as she passes the trident, and her claws ring against the shaft with a low chime.

 _Oh_. “Why didn’t you just _say so_?” Bazz demands, and grabs the weapon, ignoring the staticky prickle of reiatsu washing up his arm. He heaves, wrenching it out of the stone, and Jezebel makes an approving sound, wheeling around and sweeping out through one of the broken sections of wall. Her eerie cry carries back, and Bazz groans disgustedly, even as he slings the trident over his shoulder and follows her.

“You _know_ what Lille thinks about Guide bullshit,” he complains, but doesn’t stop. The edge of the boundary wall is ahead of them, gaping open, and it’s night on the other side, an edge of the full moon visible through the gap. “If I tell him I got sidetracked because you were feeling bitchy, he’s going to use me for target practice.”

Jezebel ignores him, of fucking course, and turns sharply, skimming the wall before she keeps going down it. the rubble is thicker here, and it takes Bazz a minute longer to climb the precarious piles than it does her to soar over them. He loses sight of her for a moment, but there's a tether in his chest tying them together, a pull that means she _definitely_ is leading him somewhere, and he follows with a quiet grumble, kicking a few loose chunks of stone out of his way.

By the time he’s over the last one, Jezebel is circling again, soaring like she’s riding a thermal. There's something dark on the sand beneath her, something patchy, but Bazz can't quite see it. He squints, trying to make it out—

There's a chittering squeak that breaks into a howl that shatters into a wavering moan, and Bazz wrenches around, automatically bringing one hand up as his crossbow condenses out of thin air. It takes a moment for his eyes to make sense to what he’s seeing, but the moment he does he recoils with a sound of disgust, leaping back even as the thing stumbles forward.

It’s a spirit animal, but Bazz has never seen one like this, less an animal and more a twisting mass of fur and scales and arms. It tries to follow him, staggers towards him a pace, but then its legs give way, washed under a rippling shift that makes its body melt and writhe sickeningly. Bazz gags, takes another step back, and it reaches for him with a wavering, shifting sound. For a moment he almost thinks he can see a recognizable head, a short snout and small round ears and a webbed, clawed foot, but then octopus arms are lashing out, dragging it across the sand before it falls forward, twists and shifts and rises on furred legs that collapse again a moment later. Antlers rise, fall away, and there's a lashing tail, cat-rat-alligator-wolf in lurching succession.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bazz breathes, and takes three long strides back for good measure. He’s long since built up barriers in his mind, locked his Guide-born empathy away except on rare occasions, and his control is better than most. This thing, though, manages to slip right past all of his walls, and it feels like hunger-anger-pain-desperation to his senses. A hundred emotions tangled together, shifting the way its body does, one surfacing briefly before it’s dragged back under the morass. A millennium as a Guide and Bazz has never seen anything even _close_.

With a mournful sound, Jezebel swoops past, her talons just skimming the thing, and turns in a tight circle around Bazz, urging him away. He goes without needing more prompting, and retreat might be cowardly, but there's no way to kill a spirit animal, no possibility of putting that thing out of its misery. Bazz has to swallow, has to turn and follow Jezebel at a near-run, because like hell he’s letting it touch him, if just standing _near_ it puts holes in his shields. Like hell he’s staying here a moment longer than—

The dark thing Jezebel was circling is a man.

Bazz stops short, caught between the convulsing spirit animal and the man who looks like he’s in exactly the same state. The feel of his reiatsu surges, falls, twists and contorts, and he moans, trying to push himself up off the sand. Dark features writhe beneath his skin, rise to the surface, and for an instant he’s a beast, a shadow, a skeletal form with a skin stretched tight across the grinning skull. His head snaps around, the motion too sharp, unnatural, and green-black-white-red-grey eyes settle on Bazz, slide across him. He laughs, high and wavering, and lurches at Bazz, only to crumple with a desperate cry.

Jezebel comes in for a gentle landing on the top of the wall, settles lightly on the stone and folds her wings with a rustle of feathers. She watches with a predator’s gaze, expectant, waiting.

“Are you fucking _serious_ ,” Bazz mutters, but he shifts back, checks how far away the spirit animal is. Closing, gradually, and the desperation in it is stronger, rising like a tide. Its eyes, when it has them, are fixed on Bazz, the same way the man’s are.

“I hate you,” Bazz informs Jezebel testily, and she ruffles her feathers, unconcerned. Bazz flips her off, shifts the trident to his left hand—

With a low, ghastly moan, the man drags himself forward, reaching urgently for the weapon.

Bazz stills. He looks at the trident, feeling the hum of power within it, and then back at the man. It’s hard, but when he concentrates, when he fixes all his attention on the shifting body, he thinks he can feel a flicker of that same reiatsu in him, echoing the weapon. Not Hollow reiatsu, not exactly—traces of it, maybe, but underneath, surging strong, is a _Shinigami's_ power.

 _Poor fucking bastard,_ Bazz wants to say, because there's no way whatever fragment of a Shinigami is tangled up in this Hollow-thing wanted to be there. He takes a breath, and Shinigami are the enemies of the Quincy, but—

They’re not the ones who burned Bazz’s life into ash. He’ll fight them, when the invasion happens, but he doesn’t hate them the way Yhwach does. Especially not like this, suffering so clearly, agony nova-bright right beneath its skin.

Bazz might not be able to kill a spirit animal, but he can kill a Hollow, can kill a Shinigami. With a huff, he crouches down, flips the trident around. It shimmers, a whirl of water spinning out of the prongs to curl down the shaft, and the Shinigami-thing’s eyes widen. It hunches forward, a high whine breaking from it, and Bazz levels his crossbow at its head, even as he holds out the trident.

“I think it’s pretty fucking far past your time to die,” he says, and the thing claws its way forward, half-unformed fingers snatching at the trident. Bazz grimaces, but—what harm can it do? He won't have trouble against pretty much any Hollow, and if it distracts the twisted mess of creatures, all the better.

He reaches out, drops the crystalline shaft of the weapon against the man’s shoulder—

With a cry, with a surge, the Hollow-Shinigami explodes forward, too fast, too sudden. It collides with Bazz, knocking him right off his feet, and Bazz's crossbow bolt goes wide. He slams into the sand, a body on top of him that’s melting and reforming and twisting, and he shouts, grabs for it to throw it off, but it collapses on top of him, dead weight and desperation as it cries, high and pained and horrible. Fingers-claws-bone-hands find Bazz's hands, snatch them as he tries to line up another shot, and Bazz snarls, lets heat rise, jerks—

The creature’s fingers touch the bare skin above his gloves, and Bazz loses every ounce of his breath on a cry. There's a lurch in his stomach like he’s falling, a moment of weightlessness, a burst of heat-light- _bright_ behind his eyes.

 _Sentinel_ , he thinks, dazed, and turns his hand, catching the Shinigami-Hollow-beast’s arm in return.

Skin ripples beneath his touch, _cracks_. Like paper falling away, or a snake shedding its old scales, it sloughs off, falls away. There's soft flesh underneath, pale and smooth and human. As soon as his fingers find it Bazz can _feel_ the sudden pressure in his head as his walls give way, shatter apart all at once. He gasps, and the creature—the _Sentinel_ makes a desperate, raw sound and curls over him. The grinning skull-mask cracks, melts into ashes that whirl away, and beneath it are blue-green eyes, bright with relief. The Sentinel folds down over Bazz, breathing out, and there's a wildness in his face that Bazz _knows_.

Just for a moment, it’s like Bazz's heart isn't beating at all. Just for a moment he can't tell if he’s one body or two, Quincy or Hollow-Shinigami- _man_ with a blaze of desperation-want-awareness- _mine_ roaring beneath the surface. He grabs for skin, sinks his fingers into tangles of dark hair, and suddenly _Sentinel_ has become _my Sentinel._

The vertigo shifts, wrenches. Bazz gasps, and there's a buzz under his skin like electricity, lightning caught in a jar. The Sentinel’s warmth only makes it worse, makes it rise, curling up his spine until it’s all he can think about. Inside of his chest there’s an empty place the size and shape of a shattered bond, centuries of scar tissue grown over it, but one touch from this bastard with his blue-green eyes and suddenly Bazz _aches_ , a hundred times worse than he has since Jugram cut himself away.

“ _No_ ,” he snarls, but it’s a useless denial. The Sentinel collapses over him and Bazz doesn’t even hesitate to drag him into his arms, to pull him right against his chest. There's a nose against his throat, a shuddering, rasping breath, and old, old instincts that Bazz has been ignoring for so long are rising again, cresting like a flood-tide. He hisses through his teeth, but he doesn’t let go, buries his face in dark hair and hangs on tight.

“Which sense?” he rasps, and the words should be unfamiliar after so long of shutting away the Guide-instinct, but they're not. They come easily, slip off his tongue without pause. “One of them’s too high, which—”

“All of them,” the man says on a laugh, and it’s only half-strained. “I can't—it’s—”

A low, harsh sound breaks from Bazz's throat, and he surges up, rolls them over. Pins the Sentinel down in the sand, bodies tangled, and bright eyes widen, unfocused, as the man grabs for him, like he’s desperate for Bazz not to move. Bazz doesn’t, crowds closer, shoves their faces together until he can rest his forehead against the man’s and orders, “Look at me.”

“I can't _see you_ —”

He’s not zoning, not yet. Not caught in the senses as they fluctuate, but definitely not in control of them, either. Bazz only ever saw Jugram like this once, after he pushed himself too hard, went too far without Bazz to ground him, and he hesitates, but—

Tipping his head, he catches the Sentinel’s mouth with his, kisses him carefully, lightly, just enough to feel. An unexpected touch, a moment of frozen stillness, and Bazz breaks the kiss with a groan of irritation.

“ _Touch_ ,” he snaps. “Focus on touch for half a second, you stupid Sentinel—”

A mouth on his steals the rest of the words, and hands pull him down into, tip his head to deepen it, and there's a tongue in his mouth, tangling with his, muffling the gasp Bazz can't quite stop. He thinks _taste_ for half a second before they’re rolling again, and there's a body on top of him, heavy heat and careful hands and fingers tracing over his shoulders, up his neck, teasing the bolts in his ears and then sliding into his hair. Bazz wants to make a sound of annoyance at him, wants to protest his mohawk being ruffled even further, but that tongue strokes along his, nails scrape his scalp, and he moans, arches.

With a groan, the Sentinel pulls away, sits up, and he drags Bazz up with him, falls back into the sand and hauls Bazz into his lap. Leaning forward, he buries his nose in the open collar of Bazz's uniform, breathes in, then turns his head to lay his ear against Bazz's chest. Setting baselines, Bazz thinks, and has to swallow, because _he’s_ this man’s baseline now. He’s the point around which his senses set themselves, his balance, his check. And, if Bazz returns the gesture, he won't _need_ shields—all he’ll have to do is touch his Sentinel’s emotions, use them to block out everything else. He used to do that, and Jugram was strong enough to keep him sane when their world burned, but it’s been so _long_. Bazz has forgotten what it feels like to be that steady.

The Sentinel doesn’t push, though, doesn’t shove his emotions right into Bazz's head to try and cement the bond. Just breathes, warm against Bazz's skin, and his arms are tight around Bazz's back, clutching him close. Long lashes hide his eyes, but Bazz can feel the fine tremor in his muscles, the desperation under the surface.

“How long have you been fucked up like that?” he asks, but can't resist the urge to slide his fingers back into soft dark hair.

The man laughs, quiet and sad. “Fifty years,” he says on a sigh, right against Bazz's skin, and it makes him shiver, makes the Sentinel tighten his grip with a soft sound. He nuzzles closer, presses a kiss to Bazz's chest, and Bazz can't stop his breath from hitching. That buzz under his skin has settled, eased, but it feels like it’s waiting. There are the first bare threads of a bond building between them, a shadow of what it could be, but even that faint balm slides across the ragged hole of Jugram’s absence and leaves Bazz feeling like he can breathe deeply for the first time in _centuries_.

“What the hell even happened to you?” he asks.

There's a low groan, and the Sentinel tips forward again, spills Bazz into the sand and sprawls over him, slotting their bodies together from crown to ankle. He noses up under Bazz's jaw, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to his pulse, and Bazz's breath hitches. A flicker of heat slides through his veins, and he swallows, strokes the Sentinel’s hair.

There's a huff, like a laugh, and the Sentinel says, “I was a lieutenant in the Seireitei. Shiba Kaien. There was a Hollow who possessed its victims, and it got me. And then another Hollow ate it, but—he wanted to keep my zanpakutō’s power, so he had to keep part of my soul intact.” He glances up, and those sea-green eyes catch Bazz's, hold as Kaien pushes up a little, leaning over him.

“And then _you_ came along,” Kaien says, and the emotion in his gaze is something like hope. “I haven’t—I've never _felt_ a Guide like this before.”

Bazz closes his eyes, lets his head thump back into the sand. Laughs, ragged and disbelieving, but doesn’t let go of Kaien. “We’re a Match,” he says. “Fuck, I didn’t think Guides could ever have more than one.”

Kaien freezes, every muscle going tense, and when Bazz glances at him he has his eyes closed tightly, expression twisted. “More than one,” he repeats, like it’s painful to say. “You have another Sentinel?”

Possessive. Something in Bazz's chest lurches, turns over, and he curls his fingers into the tattered white coat Kaien is wearing. Jugram was never greedy when it came to his Guide, even when he was Bazz's Sentinel. Bazz had been fine with that, but—some small part of him had wanted Jugram to feel as desperate and wanting as Bazz always did over him.

“Not anymore,” he says roughly, and Kaien kisses him without hesitation, deep and slow and careful, testing, leading. He drags his hands up Bazz's sides, a slow slide like he’s mapping Bazz's body, and Bazz shivers, moans as teeth skim his lower lip.

“Never again,” Kaien tells him, smiling, as he pulls away, and he rests an elbow beside Bazz's head, leans down to drag his nose down Bazz's cheek, across his ear and the bolts there, up his shaved scalp and into his pink hair. Bazz has to swallow, and he should feel trapped under Kaien’s weight, but—

He likes it, likes the whisper of the bond as it becomes more and more solid with each moment. Likes the absolute, irrevocable knowledge knotted under his skin that says he’s not alone, that he’s not one half of a whole left behind to rot. Kaien wants him, as a Guide, as a man, and Bazz can _feel_ it.

He hasn’t felt anything similar. Not ever. Not even with Jugram.

“I guess not,” he agrees, on a breath, and it’s surrender. It’s the knowledge that he’s not going back to the Wandenreich, not when he can't take Kaien there. As part Shinigami, part Hollow, every Quincy in Silbern would try to kill him on sight, and Bazz is one of the strongest Sternritter, but even he can't beat all the rest combined.

Just for a moment, he thinks of Jugram, beautiful and cold, following one step behind Yhwach at every moment. He hasn’t even looked at Bazz in centuries, but it still feels like it should hurt more than it does, deciding not to go back.

Then again, Bazz supposes Jugram left him a long time ago. This is just Bazz severing the last of their ties. There's no use in hanging on, not when he’s the only one who’s bothered to try.

Kaien’s fingers cup his face, tip his head up, and when Bazz meets his eyes he smiles, bright in a way Bazz isn't used to. _Warm_ , almost as warm as his hand, and Bazz's breath tangles in his throat when a thumb brushes across his brow, down the curve of his cheekbone.

“Would you be my Guide?” Kaien asks. His eyes are sharp, but there's no push behind his emotions, just patient pause. _Asking_ , and Bazz has to blink at him, because—because they're a _Match_. He wouldn’t be able to feel Kaien the way he does if they weren’t.

“Are you fucking stupid?” he asks incredulously. “We’re _Matched_.”

Kaien grins like it’s a joke, but he doesn’t relent. “Sure,” he agrees. “But will you be my Guide?”

Fuck. Bazz doesn’t even know what to do with that. “I guess that depends,” he says, and holds Kaien’s gaze with all the cockiness he doesn’t feel. “Are you going to be my Sentinel?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Kaien says instantly, like it’s easy. He catches one of Bazz's hands, pulls it down to tangle their fingers together, and his expression is something serious, something steady. “I thought I was going to die alone this time,” he says. “I didn’t, before, but this death…” Trails off, pausing, and then gives Bazz a smile that’s just a little crooked. “The very last thing I want is to die like that.”

Bazz thinks of the moment Jugram turned to follow Yhwach, the way it felt like his entire world had suddenly narrowed down to himself and no one else. Thinks of how it would have felt to die then, like that. He didn’t, but—it was close, a few times. Getting strong enough to make Sternritter wasn’t easy, especially as a Guide without a Sentinel, with a broken bond laid bare for anyone boasting a bit of empathy to see.

Once upon a time, he would have said that Matches never abandoned each other, that just _being_ Matched meant neither of them would die alone. But—Jugram, he thinks. _Jugram, Jugram, Jugram_ like a metronome in his thoughts.

“Yeah,” he manages, rough. “Same here.”

Kaien kisses him, tongue sliding deep, teasing, reassuring. He strokes Bazz's hair, and Bazz gets his hand around Kaien’s side, tugs him in. It makes Kaien laugh a little, sweet against Bazz's mouth, and then he murmurs, “Let’s go home.”

There's a promise in the words that makes Bazz shiver just as much as the kiss Kaien lays at the corner of his eye. _Home_ is a place that burned to ash a thousand years ago. _Home_ is anything but Silbern with its arctic halls and everyone waiting to stab everyone else in the back.

( _Home_ is a bond, gossamer-light against his soul, and hands waiting to catch his if he reaches out.)

“If they don’t kill us the second we set foot in Soul Society,” he starts, and it feels hard to get the words out, like they're weightier than they really are. Of course, treachery against a man like Yhwach isn't exactly something new for Bazz—it’s always been his plan. Enlisting the Shinigami to help him get his revenge is just…a step further than he’d ever thought to take things.

“They’ll probably at least give us time to explain,” Kaien says with a cheer that’s entirely unnecessary. When Bazz shoots him a dirty look, though, he just grins, apparently unrepentant.

Bazz rolls his eyes. “ _If_ they don’t kill us,” he says, swallows, and forges ahead. “I need to tell your Captain-Commander about something that’s a danger to Soul Society.”

Kaien’s hand tightens around his, and he leans down, presses their foreheads together. “Let’s lead with that,” he suggests, and even if the tone is light his eyes are perfectly steady and serious.

It might at least get them in the door. Bazz is Sternritter H, after all—he’s supposed to lead parts of the coming invasion, and he should know how to counter them. At the very least, giving Yamamoto Genryūsai enough warning might let him prepare for Yhwach’s trickery. He tries to call up what he knows, to order it—

A startled laugh jolts him back to awareness, and he scowls up at Kaien as Kaien pushes off him, leaning back. “ _What_?” he demands.

Kaien snickers, shaking his head, and then pulls Bazz up off the sand with him. “I don’t even know your name,” he says.

That, at least, is easily fixed. Bazz rolls his eyes, rises to his feet when Kaien tugs him up, and says, “Bazzard Black. Bazz-B. A Quincy.”

“Bazz,” Kaien decides without hesitation, and hearing the nickname after so many years makes Bazz's heartbeat trip over itself. He grabs for Kaien automatically, reels him a step closer—

There's a sharp tug on his pants, making him jerk, and he wrenches around, mind full of thoughts of that awful, shifting mass of spirit animal. His bow reforms with a blaze of white-blue light, and he jerks it down, ready to fire.

Bright black eyes blink up at him, and a webbed paw tugs at him again. The sea otter chirrups, clicks, holding Bazz's startled gaze, and then drops to all fours. It slides over to Kaien, circling his feet with a bounce, and it’s chirps get higher, happier.

With a laugh, Kaien kneels down, scooping it up in his arms. “Hey there, minion,” he says warmly. “I missed you too, little guy.”

With a rustle of wide wings, Jezebel settles on Bazz's shoulder, preens her beak through his now thoroughly ruined mohawk, and then takes off again, circling Kaien in a lazy loop. He glances up from his spirit animal to watch her, expression admiring, and then looks back at Bazz with that same warmth on his face. “She’s beautiful,” he says.

 _So are you_ , Bazz almost says, but catches himself in time. It’s all right; Kaien is leaning down to retrieve his zanpakutō, distracted, and Bazz will keep it to himself for now.

“Ready to go?” he asks instead, and Jezebel cries out, eerie and low enough to make all the hairs on the back of Bazz's neck stand up. She circles once more, then rises towards the sky, vanishing in a shimmer of light. She’ll be back, Bazz knows; she brought him to Kaien, which was her whole reason for being here.

With a sad squeak, Kaien’s otter squirms out of his arms, slides to the ground and then lopes after her with a chittering farewell. He vanishes, too, though he takes another look back at Kaien before he goes.

“I guess that means we’re done here,” Kaien says easily, and he’s still smiling, even as he reaches out for Bazz. “Ready when you are, Bazz.”

Bazz swallows. Looks from Kaien’s face to his hand, offered so easily, and—

The other Sternritter know where he is, will realize when he doesn’t report back. But it doesn’t matter, because by that time it will be too late for anyone to stop him. Bazz won't _let_ them stop him, no matter what. He finally fucking found a Sentinel, after a thousand years alone. A thousand years thinking Jugram was the only one for him, even after Jugram tore their bond apart and chose Yhwach as his Guide instead.

It’s stupid as hell to leap for the first Sentinel who fucking wants him, but—

But he can feel Kaien like a thread of heat twisted through his veins, and Kaien isn't letting go.

Bazz takes the offered hand, steps forward, and leaves everything else behind.


End file.
